So as many of you know, I am in the midst of traveling for residency interviews. Where's the most recent place my travels have taken me? San Diego. In our search for something unique to do, we checked out the local guides and found out about whale watching. The ads seemed kind of gimmicky (I mean who would think that you could actually come close to grey whales out at sea), but let me tell you - it was for real. We went on the Hornblower cruise, which left promptly at 1:30PM from the San Diego Harbor.

The day was absolutely perfect for our adventure, with temps in the low 70's and lots of sunshine. The voyage out of the bay was pretty neat, affording nice views of San Diego, as well as some of the military installations that dot the San Diego coastline. We headed about 4 miles out into the Pacific, arriving near a buoy called SD-1, signaling the end (or beginning) of the San Diego area. Apparently the whales tend to congregate around this particular buoy because of the low-frequency humming that it makes periodically. We were instructed to watch out for the 10-foot tall spouts, a heart-shaped burst of mist arising from a whale's blowhole. The origins of the spout are also interesting; when whales take in a deep breath, they consume large amounts of humidified air near the ocean's surface. As they descend into the water, the combination of the cold temperatures and pressure gradients cause the water to condense within the whale's lungs. When they surface, they exhale this water from their blowholes. One of the really fun things about the journey was yelling out "thar she blows" when you saw the spout. It only took about 5 minutes of waiting before we saw a couple of spouts, only about 100 feet ahead.

There they were, these gigantic 100-150 ft long whales on their 6000 mile annual journey from Alaska down to Baja California. While we hoped for a "breach," which is when the whales actually emerge entirely from the water (like dolphins do), we were not to hold our breath because California Grays typically don't breach (unlike humpbacks). What we did get to see, however, was the "fluke" or tail of the whale, that emerges from the water before the whale takes a long, deep dive. Now it might now sound like much, but seeing these nearly 12 foot wide fan shaped tails emerge from the water was astounding, giving you a real sense of how huge these majestic creatures really are.  We hung out there for a while, before losing site of the whales. As the whales swam away, the captain made an announcement that got us all excited - apparently, about 1-2 miles away from where we were, another ships had caught site of nearly 6 or so whales, with many, many dolphins as well. Everyone on the ship was excited, including the marine biologist who was on board from the Natural History Museum. So off we went.

It didn't take long for us to arrive in probably one of the most spectacular displays of nature that I have ever seen. We could see the other ship in front of us at a distance, but all around were these spouts of water, some only 2-3 feet tall, from the dolphins, and at least 5 by my count that were 10 feet tall or higher. In all, I could see 5 whales clearly, and probably about 40 dolphins, who were obviously in a mood to play. There were two varieties of dolphins there, pacific white-sided dolphins and the familiar bottlenose dolphins. These guys were so curious, swimming up right next the ship, putting on a show for us as if they were naturally born entertainers. The whales too, put on a show of their own, blowing midst higher and higher in the air, and repeatedly surfacing and then showing their amazing flukes as they dove into the deep. The marine biologist speculated that what we were actually seeing was a complicated mating ritual of the whales, which she had read of, but never actually seen. Suffice it to say, it was incredible. I tried to capture some of this on film, but was too taken by what I was seeing to click the camera on time. The dolphins and whales continued to put on this show for nearly 30 minutes, before disappearing from view.  Actually, the timing could not have been more perfect, because it was nearly 4PM now, and time to head back to bay.  On the journey back, we saw the rows and rows of sea lions bathing in the sun near, with a bunch of pups lying around their parents.

If you’re in the San Diego area in the appropriate season, this is one of the most memorable things you can do on your trip – the cost is reasonable ($40 for two tickets; $5 for binocular rental; $10 for parking), and the experience is beyond compare. For more information, check out www.hornblower.com.
 

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